We are in a leadership crisis. According to Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer, trust in leadership is at an all-time low. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2025 found that trust in immediate managers plummeted to just 29% in 2025, a 37% decline since 2022. And Gartner declared leadership development as a top CHRO priority in 2025 (again!)
It’s no wonder then that the HR.Hackathon Alliance community voted to tackle the topic of leadership for our next global, virtual HR.Hackathon – even beating out AI! One community member commented: “Leadership development is broken and it's impacting everything!” Another added: “If we don't have leaders that feel comfortable navigating immense change (with humanity) none of the other things matter.”
Meet #HRForLeaders.
We wanted to help with what we know best – using design thinking to ideate our way out of a complex problem like this. A group of global community members – from countries including Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and the United States, convened last week to tackle the challenge “How might we equip leaders to guide their teams through uncertainty & complexity?”
First, the emoji one participant drew says it all – leaders are in trouble, y’all:
Participants surfaced five key challenges that leaders face in the current environment:
1) Burnout
2) Unrealistic expectations from direct reports
3) Skills gap
4) Lack of training
5) Lack of cross-skilling
To tackle these five challenges, here are the top 5 ideas the #HRForLeaders HR.Hackathon participants generated:
1.Use AI To Minimize Burnout
Use AI to open time for human interactions and self-care. [Watch video pitch here]
2.Get Resources to Save Resources
Manager empowerment initiative to set expectations and build out their toolkit. [Watch video pitch here]
4. Learning Lifestyle Leadership
We want to move away from traditional “training” and move to ongoing, practical, and agile learning experiences that make leadership a lifestyle. [Watch video pitch here]
5. Cross-Skilling Vending Machine
Press a button and get a randomly assigned micro-course, shadowing opportunity, or challenge from a totally different department. [Watch video pitch here]
Got more ideas? Keep sharing with #HRForLeaders and let’s tackle this together!